1968 Skylark- 20,000 miles- no vinyl top, straight 6, $15K/BO

https://newhaven.craigslist.org/cto/d/1968-buick-skylark/6642763624.html

I dealt with this guy a few years back.. Knows his stuff. This car is CLEAN and original. I can look at it for someone who is SERIOUS, as it's a 2 or so hour drive...

 

That things AWESOME! I get a real kick out of seeing a straight six still in them at cruise ins and such.

 

George, Cool find to bad its not a 3 on the tree. Guessing its the old Little old Lady, only drove it to Church on Sunday car...

 

It's a gorgeous car...but, and it's a big "but", it's got that absolutely horrible 6 in it. A Buick with a Chevy 6 in it is kinda like kissing your cousin, it might be a bit of fun and it might be a bit of a thrill but it's just plain wrong. My apologies to the guys that like those things, I used to have A bodied Chevelles with those horrible engines in them, countless dollars later and a number of shoe soles later and after 30 years of therapy I'm finally at the point where I just break into a cold sweat whenever I see one of those abominations.
I'd lose the originality factor if I bought that car; - that 6 wouldn't even make it to the end of the driveway before I'd have it out and in the garbage.

 

I had a 68 Special and a 71 Skylark with the straight 6, never an issue and still had fun beating the crap out of them. One wheel peel and figure 8's. Not kidding, I could not kill them and I drove the to the junk yard when the body/frames rusted out.

 

Yeah i had a 71 with the 250. It was a great running engine. Why all the hate?

 

Watertown NY?

 

That 250 I-6 powered many an Apollo and downsized Skylark (X-body) and did a decent and economical job of it.

 

We had a lot of 250-6 cyls up here in Canada, it seems every second Chev or Pontiac came with them. I suppose they were no better or no worse than anything in the late 60s, but the ones I had and had the displeasure of working on were all leaky, slow running, underpowered and unreliable messes. They were a bear to get started at -40F, the carb would ice up repeatedly and frequently. The auto-choke was a waste of space and time. When they unified the manifolds and made them part of the head cast it just seemed to make it worse; before you could take a tiger torch into it to unthaw it, afterwards you'd only burn it down. Heat was terrible, sure it was a big chunk of iron out front but at -40 it never got warm. As for power, well, what was that; I've read that some guys get one wheel spinning, well on one of mine, (on a 70 Chevelle) I needed to have 4 guys holding the rear end of the car up in order to get it going. You'd figure that because it weighed more than a SBC that there'd be a lot of traction and sure-footedness going on, but you'd be wrong,; the car was tail happy on ice. Get that clunk stuck in snow and that was it, call for a tow truck. It was a totally useless car in winter. And leak, man, could those engines leak! On that same car, there was no physical way I could seal that engine up, it leaked like the Exxon Valdez on steroids. It lost 2 quarts per 20 miles. The one good thing about that car was that it didn't rust, the undercoating was constantly being replenished and water wouldn't stick to any of it. In the winter because of carb icing, there was no way the thing even got close to the 20 mpg it was supposed to; it got 8 if you were lucky and it didn't burn down. I only know of one 250 6 banger that actually went the distance; - it was in a 67 Chevelle and it did 250,000 miles before the body fell off the frame. There was nothing wrong with the motor. But, it had never done over 55 mph, it had oil changes every 1500 miles, and it was pampered. It was also on a 3 speed manual, not on an automatic. If there ever was one engine that needed to live on a standard transmission, that was the one, it didn't have enough torque for an automatic and ran too slow to really get anything out of it.
That all said, they woke up a bit if you shoved high compression 283 pistons into them and boosted the compression, as well as putting a multibarrel manifold and carb on them with a header. You could cam them up a bit too. They just wouldn't last worth a tinker's cuss, but then they finally rivaled a similar sized 8 for performance. A far better motor was the Pontiac OHC version, it had potential that GM never fully capitalized on.
So yes, it's just my opinion, I'm sure others swear by them, I swear at them, if I ever see another one it'll be too soon.

 

I believe in 74 or 5 Buick went back to the V6 and dumped the 250 as the standard engine.

 

I think what makes the Buick's with the 250 so undesirable is the fact that it is a Chevy engine that was installed in a time period where divisions generally still had their own engines. Who wanted to buy a Buick with a Chevy engine? Who would want to buy a Buick of that vintage with a Chevy engine even today? This Skylark for sale appears to be a beauty but who wants a six banger chevy in there Buick at that price, very few I would bet. For that money you could buy v8 powered one with some options. It's the base Skylark with virtually no options and of course the chrome wheels, who wants to bet they were added??

 

If it gets to -40 the problem isn't the car,...it's your location

 

If you open the Craigslist link the last pic shows the car with hubcaps so yes, the chrome wheels were probably added. I would have added them too if it was mine though. Beautiful car! Six cylinder or not.

 

Every year I ask my parents; "Why, out of any place on this whole earth, did you guys decide to emigrate here?"
The only reason I'm here is because of the job, for what I do there's no where else I'd get paid the same amount of money. Otherwise, yeah, I'd be in some place where the only ice comes in a glass.

 

That car is just begging for an LS swap! Ducking... :^)

 

I would love to own that car, even with the I-6, but I would only pay 1/2 that price.

If I remember correctly the I-6 got a 1 bbl carb. And look at all that room in the engine bay for detailing.

 

Agreed, that is a ton of money.

 

No, it's in Watertown, CT

 

I would give $7-8k then swap in a 462 and leave the rest alone, it would be an epic sleeper.

 

Is this thing still here?
'Cuz with that horrible little engine I expected it to be.